


Starla Had a Sister

by posingasme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Alcoholic Dean, Episode: s02e15 Tall Tales, Explicit Language, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 15:23:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5422088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/posingasme/pseuds/posingasme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is in the middle of trying to get him and Sam a hook-up for the night. The mess at the bar apparently has a sister. He has a brother. The math adds up. But so does the liquor, and suddenly it isn't Starla's mouth Dean wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starla Had a Sister

"Dean? What do you think you're doing?"

The older man turned and grinned in a lopsided sort of way. "Hey," he laughed.

"Dude, what are you drinking?"

"I don't know, man. I think they're called...Purple Nurples?"

Sam was frowning. Sam was always frowning. "Dean? This is a very serious investigation. We don't have time for any of your-"

"Blah blah blah blah," Dean finished for him, and he heard a giggle beside him. Right. He had started to forget about her. "Sammy! This is my brother Sam."

"Hi," the younger man sighed.

"Enchanté," the girl drawled, practically falling over to put her little hand into Sam's large one.

Sam pulled his hand back as though he couldn't be sure where she had been. Which...was probably a valid thought.

"Dude." Dean patted the blonde's arm and moved to take his brother into a strategy huddle. "Her name's Starla. And good news? She's got a sister."

The look on Sam's face was pure annoyance. "Dean-"

And then his arm was around his brother's shoulders-When had the kid gotten so monstrously tall? And...and hot? He had seen the way Starla had stared as Sam had approached. "Sammy, you know as well as I do that we can't do any more tonight. Till we can get into the fucking building. I ain't...We're not going into this blind. Not like...like things that are blind with eyes that don't see. What's blind?"

"Potatoes."

"Right like..." Dean blinked at him. "What?"

Sam smirked. "Bats, Dean. You're thinking of bats."

"No, I'm thinking of spirits, and I don't want to go in till we've had time to EMF. Looking for it. Scanning. You know."

"Yeah. I know. But I thought we were doing research-"

"I am! Sam, I'm a fucking real professional."

"You're also more trashed than I've ever seen you in my life, and I once talked you into leaving a bar by promising you there would be cotton candy and Anna Nicole waiting for you back in the room. And I couldn't tell which you were more excited about."

Dean stabbed his finger into his brother's chest. It hurt. Or he was pretty sure it would have hurt if he could feel things. "I will never forgive you for that lie," he slurred.

"Dean? I'm going to need another drink!"

"Yeah! Okay!" he called behind him. Then he looked back at Sam. "She doesn't need another drink."

"I can see that."

"So four of us are going to walk back to the room. Then you're going to walk them back to their place. See? Love college towns, man! Everything in fucking walking distance."

"Jesus, Dean. You're so sloshed. Remember you and Dad getting buzzed together when I was like fifteen, and he would tell you to watch your fucking mouth while you were both tanked, because it was every other word after you'd been drinking. Used to crack me up. Watch your fucking mouth, son!"

Dean was watching Sam's fucking mouth. It was a thing of beauty, really. Women watched it all the time. Dean saw them. Their eyes drifted from Sam's eyes down to his lips, and then Dean would see them bite into their own as if they were imagining biting into Sam's, and it always made Dean want to know why. It occurred to him now that he still didn't know. "So what's with your lips?"

Sam's eyes widened, and he raised his fingertips to brush against them.

Without meaning to, Dean mirrored him.

"What do you mean? I got something on me?"

"Yeah," Dean confirmed, staring. "Lips."

The way Sam was looking at him made Dean wonder if one of them were either crazy or stupid. "Okay."

"They like them. I mean, why? Just because they're pretty?"

Sam made a strange face now.

"Your mouth, jackass," Dean snapped, as if Sam were being dense. "I'm talking about your mouth. Girls like it. Why?"

"Uh..." Sam shrugged.

Dean rolled his eyes. When he could see straight again, he grabbed hold of his brother and yanked him back to the bar. Starla was still vertical, and Dean called that a win. Her sister was there in a black dress and heels that seemed a bit overkill in a place like this, but Dean liked a class act, so he wasn't complaining.

"Dean-"

"His mouth. Right?" Dean demanded, gesturing to his brother with a hand.

The sister looked confused, but Starla laughed. "Oh yeah," she confirmed.

Sam was turning an odd shade of pink.

"Okay," Dean said philosophically, "but _why_?" He fell hard on that last word for emphasis.

The other girl seemed to have caught up. "I don't know about his lips. But his eyes. It's like staring into the sun."

Dean nodded enthusiastically. "Right? But the mouth too. I mean, look at his fucking mouth."

"Dean!" Sam cried out.

"And it's not just because you know he could fit something inside it. It's more than-"

He felt his brother grab his arm and pull him backward. "Dude! What's wrong with you? What the hell are you doing?"

He couldn't help noticing his vision was at mouth-level. "I want to know!" he hissed. He didn't know why they were talking in secret, but he still wanted his answer. "What is it that makes me stare at it all the time? Because if it were just wanting your mouth on me, I wouldn't be thinking about my mouth on you while I'm looking at it."

Dean was as drunk as he could ever remember being, and the evening was beginning to have dark spots. He blinked too long and opened his eyes to find that they were walking-alone-across a parking lot.

"So?" he demanded, even though he was not sure how much time he had lost just then. "Why do I look up at your lips when I think about going down on my knees for you? Not that-not that you on _your_ knees isn't a pretty thought, because it sure the fuck is, but if I'm the one actually using my mouth-"

Sam felt feverish beside him. His hand was gripping Dean's upper arm mercilessly, nearly dragging him. "Dude, stop talking. Stop talking now."

That was a nice idea too, and Dean was trying to make that happen, but it was more complex than it should have been to turn off his mouth. God. What wouldn't he give to turn _on_ Sam's mouth? "I think it might just be that I'm waiting for you to talk. Tell me what to do. You always want to talk, Sammy. But you never tell me what to do. I've been waiting years. Years! Nothing. You never give me anything I can do for you."

There was another extended blink, and now Sam was dragging him in a room. It was pretty efficient traveling this way. Stop-action drunkenness was like teleportation. Dean would have to write that down, in case it was genius.

"Get in," Sam was growling, and it had happened again, but now Dean was standing in a shower.

"Where did my clothes go?" he cried out indignantly.

Sam's eyes were stone. Hazel, gorgeous, dangerous stone. "You ripped most of them off a minute ago, Dean! While trying to do the same to mine! The hell has gotten into you?"

"Not _you_ ," he shot back, and he felt good about that comeback.

Sam's nostrils flared, and, as if the guy had summoned it by projecting his wrath, cold rain poured down over Dean's head.

He gave a yelp that echoed back at him.

"Stay there. Puke. Whatever you gotta do. Don't drown. I'm going to get ice. And air. I need some air."

Dean realized belatedly that the rain falling on him was the shower. So when he tried to follow Sam, he slipped and crashed onto the floor. The plastic curtain was all around him, and cool water assaulted him everywhere, and his limbs were at angles they shouldn't be without extensive training.

Sam was cursing nearby. He sounded a little bit like John when John was drunk.

The tangle became untangled, with much profanity, and finally the water stopped pelting him. He was shivering and vomiting, and then Sam was assisting with the brushing of teeth, and then Sam was wrestling him into the bed. And now he was staring up at Sam with adoration, and talking and he had lost track of what he was saying and what he was thinking. He wasn't so sick anymore, and the room spinning was not painful as it was before. Those were improvements. But some things stayed the same.

"Doesn't go away, you know?" he whispered in a voice full of aching. "It should. As I get sober."

"You're not sober, Dean," Sam sighed.

"No, I know. But I will be. Tomorrow will be all cheery, all come on, Sammy, rise and shine, Sammy, let's get going. Let's go kick the ass of some fucking monster that I can pretend is me."

His brother stiffened like he had been shocked. "You? What does that mean?" He lowered himself to sit beside Dean on the bed.

Dean let his gaze trail down to Sam's sweet lips again, then closed his eyes against the vision, against the guilt and shame boiling inside him. He could smell his brother, that comforting scent he knew so well, and he could feel the heat from him.

"Dean?" Sam said again with a note of caution that Dean did not understand. "What do you mean you pretend the monsters we hunt are you?"

He laughed in a bark, could feel the bed shake with it. He draped a heavy arm over his eyes. "Don't worry about it," he spat bitterly.

"Dean?"

He felt like the word punched something out of his chest, his name, spoken like a million times before, always from those sweet lips. It was different now. Sam had said his name like he didn't know the person it belonged to. And that was fair, Dean realized. Because Sam knew him better than anyone, but he didn't know this, because no one knew this. And if he didn't know this part of Dean...there wasn't much left to know. This _was_ Dean. This took up so much of Dean that there was no room for anything else, except the self-hatred, which oozed into every crack and filled every corner. Everything that wasn't love and lust for Sam was hatred for Dean. So in that way, Sam knew nothing about him.

"Dean!" his brother snapped again. "What does that mean? I swear to god, dude, if you don't start making sense, I'll spray you down with holy water and start reading you Latin, because I don't know what the hell else to do with you."

"You think this makes sense?" Dean laughed. "You think any of this makes sense?"

"You said you thought of the monsters as you, Dean! The ones we hunt and kill, you said something about pretending they're you."

He sat up then, throwing off his blankets and glowering into his brother's worried eyes. "Those monsters got nothing on me!" he roared. "Only that we're hunting them, and nobody knows to hunt me but me! Every fucking throat I cut, every bone I burn should be mine! But instead, I save people and let my kid brother think I'm some kind of fucking hero instead of a goddamn sickness on two legs."

Sam looked as though he had been slapped. "You are a hero, Dean," he whispered hoarsely.

"No. I'm a goddamn sickness. I'm a complete fraud and a fucking disease. Ninety percent crap and ten percent fucked up. That's what I am, Sam. And I finally drank enough poison to let it show. Starla, right? Should have had a few less shots, and should be deep into her right now. Should be making her scream. And scream what? Did I give her my name or yours? Because sometimes I do that, because I'm so fucked up, I want to hear her scream your name. Since I can't do it. So I'll call myself Sam, and listen to some bitch moan it out, and that's when I get off the hardest, when I hear your name. Starla. I remember now. She had a sister. A set, just like us. One pretty and fucked up, and one gorgeous and classy. Just like us. And I remember thinking, maybe Sam would go for this. If I can get Sam to go for this, I can at least hear him get off. Maybe steal a glance at him fucking into her, while they say our names. As if I got any right to know what you look like and sound like. As if I got any fucking right..."

He was sobbing and shaking now, and he caught himself reaching for something off the bed. Sam saw it too, and just watched with horror in his eyes as Dean found his flask and turned it up. "Dean, you can't drink more!"

Dean sputtered in a heaving, wet breath. "The hell I can't. Just a little more, maybe it'll fucking kill me. You can burn me, and go on without a fucking disease lurking over you."

Sam grabbed his wrist then, hard. "Dean!"

"Don't call me that!" he exploded, ripping himself from Sam's grasp. "Like you know who I am-what I am! Don't-just don't! Don't say my name and don't fucking touch me!"

"Why-"

"Because that's what I want you to do!"

There was silence.

Then Dean collapsed into his sobs, too sober to stay and too drunk to go, just trapped on a bed with Sam, where he wanted to be more than anything in the world.

Sam slowly took his hand in both of his own. "Dean, it's okay."

Green eyes looked up at him through red rims and blurry tears. "How can you say that?" he hissed.

"Because it is."

"It wasn't...like this before," he choked out. "Brothers, man. Us against the world. Till I saw you again after all those years apart. And then it was like...Sam, you were this man, this stranger, who was everything I loved and adored in my kid brother, and...and not my kid brother all at the same time. It's like...like I was looking for-for someone who could be what you were to me, a lover who could...who could be the friend you always were, and...and then there you were. Maybe if we were never apart for those years. Maybe it wouldn't have shocked my system like that. You know?"

Sam was nodding, looking into his face with intensity.

"This man, this..." He laughed helplessly. "This beautiful man was everything my kid brother had been and was also fucking gorgeous, just...He was everything I loved about my brother, and at the same time, whoever he was, I wanted my hands on him. My mouth. Everything. I wanted him like I never wanted anything. I always thought...I thought if I could somehow have hunting and you, and then also figure out how to have something beautiful on the side here and there, that would be it for me. Perfection. And I realized after a few weeks of riding with you...Sam, you _are_ the beautiful thing I want. You're everything I want, my kid brother and the lover I need, all in this one amazing person. How can I even look at anyone else when perfection is right there beside me? I got no right to it. I know that. But it's there, and I'll never find anything that comes close to what you are. You're it for me, Sammy. And I'm so, so tired of trying to tell myself you're not. So..."

Hazel eyes watched him gasp in a thick breath.

"So you gotta go. Take the Impala if you want her. Be good to her. Just go. I'll wrap up this spirit thing on my own, and..." His sobs were wrecking his throat. "And with a little luck, it'll kill me before I kill it. And if it don't...something else will before long. I promise."

Sam's eyes closed finally.

Dean's empty stomach tightened as he gasped for breath. He waited. He didn't know what to expect. A fist in his face. Holy water and Latin. Angry words. An insistence that this was all just the alcohol. As if any of this were the alcohol, except the part where he stopped pretending it was Starla he wanted, or any girl like her, stopped pretending he didn't want to be the one calling Sam's name instead of some blond in a black dress.

He waited, but Sam didn't move.

"Dude, you need to go. I can't...I can't do this anymore. A year ago, maybe I could just pretend my chest doesn't hurt every time you're near me. Two years ago, I could tell myself it's just because I missed you for so long. But now, after everything else we've been through, I'm just so tired, and I'm too in love with you, and it hurts too bad, and you gotta go. Please. I'm asking." There was nothing like pride left to prevent begging at this point.

His brother swallowed hard, and he watched the younger man lick his lips, dragging the lower in to chew between his teeth.

Just that movement made Dean's body react. It wasn't fair.

"Dean," Sam said slowly, as if afraid his brother might not understand. "I'm not going anywhere."

He scoffed. "Sammy, I've been telling you all night that I want to get on my knees for you! That I want..." His sobs denied him further words.

"And maybe that's what we both want."

If Sam had hooked him in the temple, it wouldn't have hurt so much or shocked him so badly. "Sammy, don't!" He screamed it out. "Go! Hate me for this if you want, but, god, Sam, don't mock me for it. I can't fall any further! I got no place left to go!"

Then warm hands were on his face, and soft lips tasted the salt on his mouth, and an agonized moan was ripped from his throat.

"Sammy!" he cried. "Don't!"

"Shh," his brother soothed. "Shh, Dean. It's okay. I said it was okay. Let me do this. Let me do what you want. What I want. Okay? And tomorrow when you're sober, we'll do more, and we'll talk more, and we'll both spend time on our knees, because there isn't anybody out there who could worship each other like we can. And we'll call each other by name, and there won't be any pretending, and we won't be monsters, and we won't be freaks. Because what you see as a monster in you, I've seen as a freak in me, and we're not, Dean! We're not. We're lonely and scared, and we don't have to be, because the guy standing next to each of us is exactly what we each need."

Dean stared at him with slowly blinking green eyes, and lips slightly parted.

Sam smiled and touched his brother's cheek again. "I'm looking for you, and you're looking for me. It doesn't make sense for us to keep looking. I know you think it's wrong, and we'll talk about that tomorrow, I promise, but, Dean, who is even around to care? Dad's gone. Mom's gone. Bobby loves us both, and there's no reason he needs to know that part of our business. The only ones who matter here are you and me. If anything you said today was true, if you want me even a little, Dean, I'm ready to give you all of me."

Dean's eyes slipped closed, his tears spilling out. It was too much, too good to be true. Sam couldn't be the kind of monster Dean was!

"We spend every damn day facing death, Dean!" Sam was arguing. "We know better than anybody that it could be over, bloody and nasty and over, any second. We don't have time to look for something that isn't out there. I'm what you want," he reminded him, in that deep, hopeful voice of his. "You said so. You're what I want. So why are we wasting time we don't have?"

And with that, Sam was kissing him again, and this time, Dean didn't interrupt. He was too desperate for what Sam was offering.

He could only fight the monster inside him for so long.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are like cotton candy and Sam Winchester waiting for you back in your room. Hope you liked it!
> 
> ~Posing


End file.
